Does anyone know if this was a rumor or was actually gonna happen.I basically heard couple of year ago, that ECB were gonna rotate Ashes Test and India test, so each test ground had at least one money making test match.

Very disappointed that far too many test grounds were given all 3 or 2 lucrative test matches in succession 2013,2014,2015.

to be fair they actually allocated the games before I heard about the rotation of the games, should be interesting to see the grounds for the 2018 and 2019 india and Australia tours.

Lord's and The Oval will always get a Test on the big tour of the summer. Trent Bridge and Edgbaston are next in line. Headingley and Old Trafford are further down the pecking order, and Cardiff, Chester le Street get a big Test every five years more or less. Southampton is still on the edge of things. I imagine that every three tours, India will play at all of these grounds, possible minus Southampton.

I'd heard that the ticket sales weren't great for next summer's Ashes. Trent Bridge has sold out for the first four days, but seats are easily available for the last day. Given the tickets sold out withoin a few hours last time, that does suggest a lessening of interest, but the ground will be sold out.

The prices to watch international cricket in England are often way above reasonable. An acquaintance went to see all five days of the Ashes test at Lords and ended up spending over £600 for five days cricket. It puts the sport out of the financial reach of many and combined with live cricket on TV being locked behind a pay wall is it suprising we're seeing a drastic decline in participation at grass roots level? The 2005 Ashes saw a huge rise in public interest about cricket and that has been squandered.

As far as allocation goes, I have no issue with some ground not getting games. Tests should be played at grounds with the best facilities and grounds with geograpically suit the largest percentage of fans. No disrespect to CLS, but sitting exposed in temporary when it is bloody freezing does not make for the most engaging venue to watch a Test.

"It was my opinion it is up to me if I want to justify it or not" - Bhaveshgor

It seems to be a game between the lowest ranked Test side, and the top ranked associate side. This was mooted as a potential fixture to allow promotion and relegation between two levels. This isn't credible, so the BBC must have got it wrong. Or I didn't understand.

Nope on second glance... the bottom ranked Test side will play associate teams in a league, and the winner, as a reward, will play England. Obviously we know in advance that England won't be the bottom ranked side themselves, because the 'ICC' have rigged it.

While some of the policies suggested make sense, you cant enact an official policy in isolation to equitable principles. The truth is, the ECB have encouraged a number of venues to spend heavily in investing in their grounds on a loose promise of international game cash cows, and to back track on the open bid policy and to simply name a list of elite grounds may condemn a few of those to utter ruin. Its not fair to commit grounds to invest, to embrace competition, and then to close the door. I am sure Hants would be pissed, for instance.

To be frank, London hosting that many games makes perfect sense. If you check the population levels of London (near 10 million), and then all the councils that make up the South East area ( Home Counties, Sussex, Kent, Hants) all within a perfectly acceptable driving or trains distance ( a further 9 million) and then added South East Anglia and Essex (another 3-4 million).... you have about 40-45% of the population of the country. So if anything, in terms of "easiest big place with good travel connections" London is by far and away the biggest and most logical place. Add history of the grounds and facilities, its a no brainer.

When you sum up all that is fair, etc etc, its simply impossible to come up with an answer. At the moment, I don't think it fair to spread international cricket to grounds and leave others out. I mean, in all logicality, why should Sussex spend millions of pounds in creating a 25,000 seater stadium that lies dormant for 950 consecutive days until their rotation comes around? Encouraging ground investment is not logical. Why the hell would England need 18 state of the art stadiums fit for International cricket, when in essence, they are used 5 days in every 4 years? That's simply dead money for 18 teams, maintaining that investment for as little pay off.

Then again, why is it also fair to award elite status to some grounds? Grounds = counties, counties being awarded more money makes the county championship institutionally biased towards test team venues (it already is, but even more), cricket at all levels suffer.

I personally think the only answer if for county teams to roll back to small, well kept stadiums that are cheap to run and more representative of attendance figures, while Internationals should look to ground share with other sports as they do more in Australia.

Other than the Olympic Stadium, I don't think there is a big capacity stadia that has a large enough playing surface for cricket in England and Wales. Apparently Wembley can accommodate an athletics track by removing the lower tier and operate at a 67,500 capacity.

As much as the SWALEC is a nice ground, it is still a white elephant of a venue. Surely £9.5 Million would be better spent reconfiguring the Millennium Stadium, increase the pitch size big enough for international cricket by removing most lower tier seating. Whenever Rugby Union or other high profile sports events takes place, add temporary seating where the original structure was.

50,000 people packed into the Millennium Stadium at £50 a pop, ECB could earn £10 Million in ticket sales just for one test match.

In Phil Parkinson we trust"You won't get anywhere slouching about half out of bed""They took all our players away, banned our captain and we still came away with a ten-wicket victory"